Mental Illness

© 2016 Richard John Kosciejew. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 04/07/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-0285-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-0284-0 (e)

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Perhaps there are other avenues taken as forwarding through MENTAL ILLNESS, rather than the development on which MENTAL ILLNESS bases itself on mere generalization. Deriving among such comparative methods as representational conceptuality, as in the mind, a thought, or notion, containing the best of all possible explanations, and to a better understanding for what really should, Be, however, in the finding of only to the bodily things, of bodily things only, and only of bodily things.

To whatever conclusions can be drawn from this, it is as much ado about its own obviousness. But, nonetheless, it is an important part in the belief of a phenomenal world, a world beset on prenominal experience. Such an assemblage of information, must first take issue to derive from their categorical presentations for the existing sense of control, the effect or affect of underlying displacement or discouraging accounts of estrangement depend upon a better understanding and the best of possible explanations for which is not to be expected, even to expect of expectation. What is more important, is to leave of open to a closed condition?

AN INTRODUCTION

Neurophysiology is the study of how nerve cells, or neurons, receives and transmits information. Two types of phenomena are involved in processing nerve signals - electrical and chemical. Electrical events propagate a signal within a neuron, and chemical processes transmit the signal from one neuron to another neuron or to a muscle cell.

A neuron is a long cell that has a thick central area containing the nucleus, it also has one long process called an axon and one or more short, bushy processes called dendrites. Any of the impulse-conducting cells that constitute the brain, spinal column, and nerves, consisting of a nucleated cell body with one or more dendrites and a single axon, also called a nerve cell. As the axon is usually a long process of nerve fibre that generally conducts impulses away from the body of the nerve cell.

Dendrites receive impulses from other neurons. (The exceptions are sensory neurons, such as those that transmit information about temperature or touch, in which the signal is generated by specialized receptors in the skin.) These impulses are propagated electrically along the cell membrane to the end of the axon. At the tip of the axon the signal is chemically transmitted to an adjacent neuron or muscle cell. The dendrite is a mineral crystallizing in another mineral in the form of branching or treelike marks. A branching protoplasmic extension of a nerve cell that conducts impulses from adjacent cells inward toward the cell body, as a single nerve cell posses many dendrites, and also called a dendron.

Like all other cells, neurons contain charged ions: Potassium and sodium (positively charged) and chlorine (negatively charged). Neurons differ from other cells in that they are able to produce a nerve impulse. A neuron is polarized - that is, it has an overall negative charge inside the cell membrane because of the high concentration of chlorine ions and low concentration of potassium and sodium ions. The concentration of these same ions is exactly reversed outside the cell. This charge differential represents stored electrical energy, sometimes referred to as membrane potential or resting potential. The negative charge inside the cell is maintained by two features. The first is the selective permeability of the cell membrane, which is more permeable to potassium than sodium. The second feature is sodium pumps within the cell membrane that actively pump sodium out of the cell. When depolarization occurs, this charge differential across the membrane is reversed, and a nerve impulse is produced.

Depolarization is a rapid change in the permeability of the cell membrane, depolarizing to remove the outlook from a particular influence or control of a partial or completely eliminating counter-interacting polarity, or condition of polarity, as a condition of polarization as a process or state of opposing attributes or principles that partially or complete separation of positive and negative electric charge in a nuclear, atomic, molecular or chemical system.

When sensory input or any other kind of stimulating current is received by the neuron, the membrane permeability is changed, allowing a sudden influx of sodium ions into the cell. The high concentration of sodium, or action potential, changes, on the whole, from that which of one end to another intention of something, especially the charges from that within the cell from its negative to the positive, as the local changes in ion concentration triggers similar reactions along the membrane, by its propagating of the nerve impulse. An impelling force for bearing an interactive surge in bettering the electric current or voltage, in one direction, the electrochemical transmission of a signal along a nerve fibre produces an excitatory or inhibitory response at a target tissue or acting upon an impulse.

Subsequently, it was announced that the refractory period, during which the ionic concentration for reserving to the resting potential, the neuron can repeat this process. Nerve impulses travel at different speeds, depending on the cellular composition of a neuron. Where the acceleration of impulse is important, as in the nervous system, axons are insulated with a membranous substance called myelin. The insulation provided by myelin maintains the ionic charge over long distances. Nerve impulses are propagated at specific points along the myelin sheath; These points are called the Nodes of Ranvier. Examples of myelinated axons are those in sensory nerve fibres and nerves connected to skeletal muscles. In non-myelinated cells, the nerve impulse is propagated more diffusely.

When the electrical signal reaches the tip of an axon, it stimulates small presynaptic situations in front of or occurring before a synapse called neurotransmitter vesicles, is released into the microscopic space between neurons (the synaptic cleft). The neurotransmitter connects and attaches upon the surface of the adjacent neuron. This stimulus causes the adjacent cell to depolarize and propagate an action potential of its own. The duration of a stimulus from a neurotransmitter is limited by the breakdown of the chemicals in the synaptic cleft and the reuptake by the neuron that produced them. Formerly, each neuron was thought to make only one transmitter, but recent studies have shown that an unspecified number or quantity as inferring that a determinant amount in which the significance to believe or progress in the use of some acceptation that cells that can or in the probability of affecting the possibility as having two or more.

During the early 1900s, in examining the workings of the nervous system, physiologists were beginning to explore the idea that the transmission of nerve impulses takes place, in part, via chemical means. Loewi decided to explore this idea. During a stay in London in 1903, he met Sir Dale, who was also interested in the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. However, for Loewi, Dale, and all the other researchers pursuing a chemical transmitter of nerve impulses, years of effort produced no solid evidence. In 1921 Loewi suspended two frogs' hearts in solution, one with a major nerve removed. Removing fluid from the heart that still contained the nerve, and injecting the fluid into the nerveless heart, Loewi observed that the second heart behaved as if the missing nerve were present. The nerves, he concluded, that nerves do not act directly on the heart - it is the action of chemicals, freed by the stimulation of nerves, that causes increases in heart rate and other functional changes. In 1926 Loewi and his colleagues identified one of the chemicals in his experiment as acetylcholine. This was indisputably a neurotransmitter - a chemical that serves to transmit nerve impulses in the involuntary nervous system.

We acknowledge the neurotransmitters are inherently made by chemically induced neurons, or nerve cells. Neurons send out neurotransmitters as chemical signals to activate or inhibit the function of neighbouring cells.

Within the central nervous system, which consists of the brain and the spinal cord, neurotransmitters pass from neuron to neuron. In the peripheral nervous system, which is made up of the nerves that run from the central nervous system to the rest of the body, the chemical signals pass between a neuron and an adjacent muscle or gland cells.

Chemical compounds - belonging to three chemical families - are widely recognized as neurotransmitters. In addition, certain other body chemicals, including adenosine, histamine, enkephalins, endorphins, and epinephrine, have neurotransmitterlike properties. Experts believe that there are many more neurotransmitters as yet undiscovered.

The first of the three families is composed of amines, a group of compounds containing molecules of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Among the amines neurotransmitters are acetylcholine, norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. Acetylcholine is the most widely used neurotransmitter in the body, and neurons that leave the central nervous system (for example, those running to skeletal muscle) use acetylcholine as their neurotransmitter; neurons that run to the heart, blood vessels, and other organs may use acetylcholine or norepinephrine. Dopamine is involved in the movement of muscles, and it controls the secretion of the pituitary hormone prolactin, which triggers milk production in nursing mothers.

The second neurotransmitter family is composed of amino acids, organic compounds containing both an amino group (NH2) and a carboxylic acid group (COOH). Amino acids that serve as neurotransmitters include glycine, glutamic and aspartic acids, and gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA). Glutamic acid and GABA are the most abundant neurotransmitters within the central nervous system, and especially in the cerebral cortex, which is largely responsible for such higher brain functions as thought and interpreting sensations.

The third neurotransmitter family is composed of peptides, which are compounds that contain at least two, and sometimes as many as 100 amino acids. Peptide neurotransmitters are poorly understood, but scientists know that the peptide neurotransmitter called substance P influences the sensation of pain.

In general, each neuron uses only a single compound as its neurotransmitter. However, some neurons outside the central nervous system are able to release both an amine and a peptide neurotransmitter.

Neurotransmitters are manufactured from precursor compounds like amino acids, glucose, and the dietary amine-called choline. Neurons modify the structure of these precursor compounds in a series of reactions with enzymes. Neurotransmitters that comes from amino acids include serotonin, for which it is derived from tryptophan. Dopamine and norepinephrine, are derived from tyrosine, and glycine, which is derived from threonine, norepinephrine, maintains the substance, both a hormone and a neurotransmitter, secreted by the adrenal medulla and the nerve endings of the sympathetic nervous system to cause vasoconstriction and increase in heart rat e, blood pressure, and the sugar level of th e blood. Among the neurotransmitters made from glucose are glutamate, aspartate, and GABA, choline serves as the precursor for acetylcholine

Neurotransmitters, are kept from weakening by maintaining of a chemical substance, such as acetylcholine or dopamine that transmits nerve impulses across a synapse. These, of the supporting substances undergo the synapsis, for which a side-by-side connection of homologous paternal and material chromosomes during the proper phasing of meiosis, are, nonetheless, the junction across which a nerve impulse passes from an axon terminal to a neuron, muscle or gland cells, such that of pointing directly for being the synapse.

The neurotransmission is significantly relevant in the information for with a reinforcing subsequent in driving a response for an introduction by which a response to the varying transmissions, by some unconditional stimulus along with such meaning, is open to a given impulse, like that in which the reinforcing condition or original occurs, the state or quality for being implied at meaning. If a word by singularity . . . signifying of such indications to indicate of one's linguistic unit or pattern, for being as a succession of speech sounds, can be written or by the gesturing, for which of the conveying linguistic signs. Having or likely to have an effectual cause to occur or the quality of significance to an observer or occurrences that are too closely correlated to be attributed to chance, and in this way, is to start transmissions for being a structure of instances that affect the amounting of products to progress, as already established to rules of conduct, in that to ensure the compliance within the biochemical reaction or process was enacted by a reactionary impulse or the response for which the retributive composition for any the detrimental agreeing as that which a compromise of that which is mutually agreeing, a difference from which each side makes concessions among the resulting integrations as to combine qualities or elements of the different things.

All and all, correlated to a linguistic form or construction that a singularized process, is, nonetheless, to rehabilitate, from a disability and restore the advocacy upon the biochemistry of a sustainable and vital process for occurring in living organisms. Biological chemistry, psychological chemistry being the chemical composition of a particular living system or biological substance, along the lines as the principal chemical compound, whose position takes of the fact upon which the transmitted intent or given to an impulsive force that releases into a microscopic gap, the minute space between the cell membrane of an axon terminal and that of the target cell with which it has the synapsis. Separating the transmitting neuron from the cell receiving the chemical signal, which generates the signal is called the presynaptic cell, while the receiving cell is termed the postsynaptic cell.

After their release into the synapse, neurotransmitters combine chemically with highly specific protein molecules, termed receptors, that are embedded in the surface membranes of the postsynaptic cell. When this combination occurs, the voltage, or electrical force, of the postsynaptic cell is either increased (excited) or decreased (inhibited).

When a neuron is in its resting state, its voltage is about -70 millivolts. An excitatory neurotransmitter alters the membrane of the postsynaptic neuron, making it possible for ions (electrically charged molecules) to move back and forth, as if oscillating across the neuron's membranes. This flow of ions makes the neuron's voltage rise toward zero. If enough excitatory receptors have been activated, the postsynaptic neuron responds by firing, generating a nerve impulse that causes its own neurotransmitter to be released into the next synapse. An inhibitory neurotransmitter causes differentiations that allow for the passing of oscillation across the postsynaptic neuron's membrane, lowering the nerve cell's voltage to -80 or -90 millivolts. The drop in voltage makes it less likely that the postsynaptic cell will fire.

If the postsynaptic cell is a muscle cell rather than a neuron, an excitatory neurotransmitter will give to cause the muscle to contract. If the postsynaptic cell is a gland cell, an excitatory neurotransmitter will cause the cell to secrete its collective contents.

While most neurotransmitters interact with their receptors creating new electrical nerve impulses that energize or inhibit the bordering cell, some neurotransmitter interactions, but not to generate or suppress nerve impulses. Instead, they interact with a second type of receptor, containing a specialized cell or group of nerve endings that responds to sensory stimuli, yet maintains a molecular structure or on the surface or interior of a cell that binds with substances such as hormones, antigens, drugs, or neurotransmitters. Nevertheless, having to change her internal chemistry of the postsynaptic cell by either causing or blocking the formation of chemicals called second messenger molecules. These second messengers regulate the postsynaptic cell's biochemical processes and enable it to conduct the maintenance necessary to continue synthesizing neurotransmitters and conducting nerve impulses. Examples of second messengers, which are formed and entirely contained within the postsynaptic cell, include cyclic adenosine monophosphate, diacylglycerol, and inositol phosphates.

Once neurotransmitters have been secreted into synapses and have passed on their chemical signals, the presynaptic neuron clears the synapse of neurotransmitter molecules. For example, acetylcholine is broken down by the enzyme acetylcholinesterase into choline and acetate. Neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and GABA is removed by a physical process called reuptake. In reuptake, the suppling of a protein in the presynaptic membrane acts as a sort of sponge, giving to cause the neurotransmitters to reenter the presynaptic neuron, where they can be broken down by enzymes or repackaged for reuse.

Neurotransmitters are known to be involved in a number of conditions that act of a substance for modifying instances of disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Victims of Alzheimer's disease suffer from loss of intellectual capacity, disintegration of personality, mental confusion, hallucinations, and aggressive - even violent - behaviour. These symptoms are the result of progressive degeneration in many types of neurons in the brain. Forgetfulness, one of the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, is partly caused by the destruction of neurons that normally release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Medications that increase brain levels of acetylcholine have helped restore short-term memory and reduce mood swings in some Alzheimer's patients.

Neurotransmitters also play a role in Parkinson disease, which slowly attacks the nervous system, giving to cause symptoms that worsen over time. Fatigue, mental confusion, a masklike facial expression, stooping posture, shuffling gait, and problems with eating and speaking are among the difficulties suffered by Parkinson victims. These symptoms have been partly linked to the deterioration and eventual death of neurons that run from the base of the brain to the basal ganglia, a collection of nerve cells that manufacture the neurotransmitter dopamine. The reasons why such neurons die or simple decay is yet to be understood, but the related symptoms can be alleviated. L-dopa, or levodopa, widely used to treat Parkinson's disease, acts as a supplementary precursor for dopamine. It causes the surviving neurons in the basal ganglia to increase their production of dopamine, thereby compensating to some extent for the disabled neurons.

Many other effective drugs have been shown to act by influencing neurotransmitter behaviour. Some drugs work by interfering with the interactions between neurotransmitters and intestinal receptors. For example, belladonna decreases intestinal cramps in such disorders as irritable bowel syndrome by blocking acetylcholine from combining with receptors. This process reduces nerve signals to the bowel wall, which prevents painful spasms.

Other drugs block the reuptake process. One explanation is the drug Fluoxetine (Prozac), of which blocks the reuptake of serotonin. Serotonin then remains in the synapse for a longer time, and its ability to act as a signal is also prolonged, with which this contributes to the relief of depression and the control of obsessive-compulsive behaviours.

Serotonin gives to an organic compound, forming tryptophan and found in animal and human tissue, especially the brain, blood serum, and gastric mucous membrane, and active as a neurotransmitter and in vasoconstriction, stimulation of the smooth muscle, and regulation of cyclic body processes.

Dopamine, is a chemical known to be a neurotransmitter which is essential to the functioning of the central nervous system. In the process of neurotransmission, dopamine is transferred from one nerve cell, or neuron, to another, playing a key role in brain function and human behaviour. A neuron is that of any of the impulse-conducting cells that constitute the brain with one or more dendrites and a single axon, also called a nerve cell. Dendrites are given of a material as for crystalizing in another mineral and the form of branching or treelike marks. A branching of protoplasmic extensions of a nerve cell that conducts impulses from surrounding cells forcing them toward the centre of the body cell, from which a single nerve may process several dendrites,

Dopamine forms from a precursor molecule called Dopa, which is manufactured in the liver from the amino acid tyrosine. The unrelenting of Dopa as an amino acid, formed in the liver from tyrosine, which consist s of a white crystalline amino acid that is obtained from the hydrolysis of proteins, such as a casein, which is the basis of cheese and used to mask e plastics, adherents, paints, and foods, including the precursor of epinephrine, thyroxine, and melanin, the forming and which is converted to dopamine in the brain.

The arranging resultant from changes in its particular course of action to be carried from one place to another, as this integration is improved by the condition from the circulatory system, the interchanging being transposed of neurons in the brain, where the conversion to dopamine takes place.

Dopamine is capable of doing many things, mutually agreeing or serving many functions, but, nonetheless, its versatility that suggests the presence or existence of a fact, condition, or quality. The act or gesture used to convey an idea, a desire, information, or of a command that gave to display of a chemical structure, bearing upon or operations of the neurotransmitter, as manifested to approve or ratify by agreeing to the obtainable provisions of another or oneself, if to start transmissions with the departure of another or oneself by one's enlisting associations within the standing representation, and for immortal life. Among its many functions, it plays a major role in two activities of the central nervous system: One that helps control movement, and a second, that are strongly associated with emotionally-based behaviours.

The pathway involved in movement control is called the nigrostriatal pathway. Dopamine is released by neurons that originate from an area of the brain called the substantia nigra and connect to the part of the brain known as the corpora striata, an area known to be important in controlling the musculoskeletal system.

The second brain pathway in which dopamine plays a major role is called the mesocorticolimbic pathway, as neurons in an area of the brain called, the ventral tegmentalarea transmits dopamine to other neurons connected to various parts of the limbic system, which is responsible for regulating emotion, motivation, behaviour, the sense of smell, and variously autonomic, or involuntary, functions like heartbeat and breathing. A growing body of evidence suggests that dopamine is involved in several major brain disorders. Narcolepsy, a disorder characterized of brief, recurring episodes of sudden, deep sleep, is associated with abnormally high levels of both dopamine and a second neurotransmitter, as acetylcholine. As chorea, an inherited, fatal illness in which neurons in the base of the brain are progressively destroyed, is also linked to an excess of dopamine and any of various disorders of the nervous system marked by involuntary, jerky movements, especially of the arms, legs, and face, and by incoordination.

Commonly known as shaking palsy, Parkinson's disease is another brain disorder in which dopamine is involved. Besides tremors of the limbs, Parkinson patients suffer from muscular rigidity, which leads to difficulties in walking, writing, and speaking. This disorder results from the degeneration and death of neurons in the nigrostriatal pathway, resulting in low levels of dopamine. The symptoms of Parkinson disease can be minimized by treatment with a drug called levodopa, or L-dopa, of that which is an amino acid that is the metabolic precursor of dopamine and is converted in the brain into dopamine and used in synthetic form to treat Parkinson's disease.

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder characterized by loss of contact with reality and major changes in personality. Schizophrenics have normal levels of dopamine in the brain, but because they are highly sensitive to this neurotransmitter, these normal levels of dopamine triggers unusual behaviours. Drugs such as thorazine that blocks the action of dopamine have been found to decrease the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Of, relating to, or having a personality disorders marked by extreme shyness, flatten effect, reclusiveness, discomfort with others, and an inability to form close relationships of, or relating to, or suggestive of schizophrenia . . . that schizoid is no-longer used in the scientific terminological phrasing but is characterized by the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic elements.

Studies indicate that people who are addicted to alcohol and other drugs like, cocaine and nicotine, have less amounts or a degree over which the valuation of dopamine is expended by a lower count of potential as gathered in the extent of dopamine in the mesocorticolimbic pathway. These drugs appear to increase dopamine levels, resulting in the pleasurable feelings associated with the drugs.

A serotonin, neurotransmitter, or chemical that transmits messages across the synapses, or gap, between adjacent cells, among its many functions, serotonin is released from blood cells called platelets to activate blood vessel constriction and blood clotting. In the gastrointestinal tract, serotonin inhibits gastric acid production and stimulates muscle contraction in the intestinal wall. Its functions in the central nervous system and effects on human behaviour - including mood, memory, and appetite control - have been the subject of a great deal of research. This intensive study of serotonin has revealed important knowledge about the serotonin-related cause and treatment of many illnesses.

Serotonin is produced in the brain from the amino acid tryptophan, which is derived from foods high in protein, such as meat and dairy products. Tryptophan is transported to the brain, where it is broken down by enzymes to produce serotonin. In the process of neurotransmission, serotonin is transferred from one nerve cell, or neuron, to another, triggering an electrical impulse that stimulates or inhibits cell activity as needed. Serotonin is then reabsorbed by the first neuron, in a process known as reuptake, where it is recycled and used again or converted into an inactive chemical form and excreted.

While the complete picture of serotonin's function in the body is still being investigated, many disorders are known to be associated with an imbalance of serotonin in the brain. Drugs that manipulate serotonin levels have been used to alleviate the symptoms of serotonin imbalances. Some of these drugs, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), block or inhibit the reuptake of serotonin into neurons, enabling serotonin to remain active in the synapses for a longer period of time. These medications are used to treat such psychiatric disorders as depression; Obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which repetitive and disturbing thoughts trigger bizarre, ritualistic behaviours, and impulsive aggressive behaviours. Fluoxetine (more commonly known by the brand name Prozac), is a widely prescribed SSRI used to treat depression, and more recently, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Drugs that affect serotonin levels may prove beneficial in the treatment of nonpsychiatric disorders as well, including diabetic neuropathy (degeneration of nerves outside the central nervous system in diabetics) and premenstrual syndrome. Recently the serotonin-releasing agent dexfenfluramine has been approved for patients who are 30 percent or, moreover, their ideal body weight. By preventing serotonin reuptake, dexfenfluramine promotes satiety, or fullness, after eating less food.

Other drugs serve as agonists that react with neurons to produce effects similar to those of serotonin. Serotonin agonists have been used to treat migraine headaches, in which low levels of serotonin cause arteries in the brain to swell, resulting in a headache. Sumatriptan is an agonist drug that mimics the effects of serotonin in the brain, constricting blood vessels and alleviating pain. In that which pain is an unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence, or injury, or emotional influence.

Drugs known as antagonists bind with neurons to prevent serotonin neurotransmission. Some antagonists have been found effective in treating the nausea that typically accompanies radiation and chemotherapy in cancer treatment. Antagonists are also being tested to treat high blood pressure and other cardiovascular disorders by blocking serotonin's ability to constrict blood vessels. Other antagonists may produce an effect on learning and memory in age-associated memory impairment.

The synapse, for giving to signals conveying everything that human beings sense and think, and every motion they make, follows nerve pathways in the human body as waves of ions (atoms or groups of atoms that carries electric charges). Australian physiologist Sir John Eccles discovered many of the intricacies of this electrochemical signalling process, particularly the pivotal step in which a signal is conveyed from one nerve cell to another. He shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine for this work, which he described in a 1965 Scientific American article.

How does one nerve cell transmit the nerve impulse to another cell? Electron microscopy and other methods show that it does so by means of special extensions that deliver a squirt of transmitter substance

The human brain is the most highly organized form of matter known, and in plexuities the brains of the other higher animals are not greatly inferior. For certain purposes it is expedient to regard the brain for being analogous to a machine. Even if it is so regarded, however, it is a machine of a totally different kind from those made by man. In trying to understand the workings of his own brain man meets his highest challenge. Nothing is given; There are no operating diagrams, no maker's instructions.

The first step in trying to better understand the brain by describing to what is the best of explanations, as to examine its structure in order to discover the components from which it is built and how they are related to each another. After which time, that one can attempt to understand the mode of operation of the simplest components. These two modes of investigation - the morphological and the physiological - have now become complementary. In studying the nervous system with today's sensitive electrical device, however, it is all too easy to find physiological events that cannot be correlated with any known anatomical structure. Conversely, the electron microscope reveals many structural details whose physiological significance is obscure or unknown.

At the close of the past century the Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramón Cajal showed how all parts of the nervous system are built up of individual nerve cells of many different shapes and sizes. Like other cells, each nerve cell has a nucleus and the surrounding cytoplasm. Its outer surface consists of numerous fine branches - the dendrites - that receive nerve impulses from other nerve cells, and one relatively long branch - the axon - that transmits nerve impulses. Near its end the axon divides into branches that terminate at the dendrites or bodies of other nerve cells. The axon can be as short as a fraction of a millimetre or as long as a metre, depending on its place and function. It has many of the properties of an electric cable and is uniquely specialized to conduct the brief electrical waves called nerve impulses. In very thin axons these impulses travel at less than one metre per second; In others, for example in the large axons of the nerve cells that activate muscles, they travel as fast as 100 metres per second.

The electrical impulse that travels along the axon ceases abruptly when it comes to the point or the gathering junction, in that which the axon's terminal fibres make contact with another nerve cell, the grouping junction was given the name synapses by Sir Charles Sherrington, who laid the foundations of what is sometimes called synaptology. If the nerve impulse is to continue beyond the synapse, it must be regenerated afresh on the other side. As recently as 15 years ago some physiologists held that transmission at the synapse was predominantly, if not exclusively, an electrical phenomenon. Now, however, there is abundant evidence that transmission is effectuated by the release of specific chemical substances that trigger a regeneration of the impulse. In fact, the first strong evidence showing that some transmitter substances act across the synapse was announced more than 40 years ago by Sir Henry Dale and Otto Loewi.

It has been estimated that the human central nervous system, which of course includes the spinal cord as well as the brain itself, consists of about 10 billion (1010) nerve cells. With rare exceptions each nerve cell receives information directly in the form of impulses from many other nerve cells - often hundreds - and transmits information to a like number. Depending on its threshold of response, a given nerve cell may fire an impulse when stimulated by only a few incoming fibres or it may not fire until stimulated by many incoming fibres. It has long been known that this threshold can be raised or lowered by various factors. Moreover, it was conjectured some 60 years ago that some of the incoming fibres must inhibit the firing of the receiving cell rather than excite it. The conjecture was subsequently confirmed, and the mechanism of the inhibitory effect has now been clarified. This mechanism and its equally fundamental counterpart - nerve-cell excitation - are of its topic.

At the level of anatomy there are some clues to indicate how the fine axon terminals impinging on a nerve cell can make the cell regenerate a nerve impulse of its own nerve cell and its dendrites are covered by fine branches of nerve fibres that terminate in knoblike structures. These structures are the synapses.

The electron microscope has revealed structural details of synapses that fit in nicely with the view that a chemical transmitter is involved in nerve transmission. Enclosed in the synaptic knob are many vesicles, or tiny sacs, which appear to contain the transmitter substances that induce synaptic transmission. Between the synaptic knob and the synaptic membrane of the adjoining nerve cell is a remarkably uniform space of about 20 millimicrons that is termed the synaptic cleft. Many of the synaptic vesicles are concentrated adjacent to this cleft; It seems plausible that the transmitter substance is discharged from the nearest vesicles into the cleft, where it can act on the adjacent cell membrane. This hypothesis is supported by the discovery that the transmitter is released in packets of a few thousand molecules.

The study of synaptic transmission was revolutionized in 1951 by the introduction of delicate techniques for recording electrically from the interior of single nerve cells. This is done by inserting into the nerve cell an extremely fine glass pipette with a diameter of .5 microns - about a fifty-thousandth of an inch. The pipette is filled with an electrically conducting salt solution such as concentrated potassium chloride. If the pipette is carefully inserted and held rigidly in place, the cell membrane appears to seal quickly around the glass, thus preventing the flow of a short-circuiting current through the puncture in the cell membrane. Impaled in this fashion, nerve cells can function normally for hours. Although there is no way of observing the cells during the insertion of the pipette, the insertion can be guided by using as clues the electric signals that the pipette picks up when close to active nerve cells.

At the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra first employed this technique, choosing to study the large nerve cells called motoneurons, which lie in the spinal cord and whose function is to activate muscles. This was a fortunate choice: Intracellular investigations with motoneurons have proved to be easier and more rewarding than those with any other kind of mammalian nerve cell.

Finding that the nerve cell responds to the chemical synaptic transmitter, the response depends, in part, on characteristic features of ionic compositions, that are also concerned with the transmission of impulses in the cell along its axon, when the nerve cell is at rest, its physiological makeup resembles that of most other cells in that the water solution inside the cell is quite different in composition from the solution in which the cell is bathed. The nerve cell is able to exploit this difference between external and internal composition and its uses are quite different in ways for generating an electrical impulse and synaptic transmissions.

The composition of the external solution is well grounded because the solution is essentially the same as blood from which cells and proteins have been removed. The composition of the internal solution is known only approximately. Indirect evidence indicates that the concentrations of sodium and chloride ions outside the cell are respectively some 10 and 14 times higher than the concentrations inside the cell. In contrast, the concentration of potassium ions inside the cell is about 30 times higher than the concentration outside.

How can one account for this remarkable state of affairs? Part of the explanation is that inside of the cell is negatively charged with the respect of the cell by about 70 millivolts. Since like charges repel each other, this internal negative charge tends to drive chloride ions (Cl-) outward through the cell membrane and, at the same time, to impede their inward movement. In fact, a potential difference of 70 millivolts is just sufficient to maintain the observed disparity in the concentration of chloride ions inside the cell and outside it; Chloride ions diffuse inward and outward at equal rates. A drop of 70 millivolts across the membrane therefore defines the equilibrium potential for chloride ions.

To obtain a concentration of potassium ions (K) that is 30 times higher inside the cell than outside would require that the interior of the cell membrane be about 90 millivolts negative with respect to the exterior. Since the actual interior is only 70 negative millivolts, it falls short of the equilibrium potential for potassium ions by 20 millivolts. Evidently the thirtyfold concentration can be achieved and maintained only if there is some auxiliary mechanism for pumping potassium ions into the cell at a rate equal to their spontaneous net outward diffusion.

The pumping mechanisms are applicably fewer but some more difficult tasks of pumping sodium ions (Na) out of the cell against a potential gradient of 130 millivolts. This figure is obtained by adding the 70 millivolts of internal negative charge to the equilibrium potential for sodium ions, which is 60 millivolts of internal positive charge. If it were not for this postulated pump, the concentration of sodium ions inside and outside the cell would be almost the reverse of what is observed.

In their classic studies of nerve-impulse transmission in the giant axon of the squid, A. L. Hodgkin, A. F. Huxley and Bernhard Katz of Britain demonstrated that the propagation of the impulse coincides with abrupt changes in the permeability of the axon membrane. When a nerve impulse has been triggered in some way, what can be described as a gate opens and lets sodium ions pour into the axon during the advance of the impulse, making the interior of the axon locally positive. The process is self-reinforcing in that the flow of some sodium ions through the membrane opens the gate further and makes it easier for others to follow. The sharp reversal of the internal polarity of the membrane constitutes the nerve impulse, which moves like a wave until it has travelled the length of the axon. In the wake of the impulse the sodium gate closes and a potassium gate opens, thereby restoring the normal polarity of the membrane within a millisecond or less.

With this understanding of the nerve impulse in hand, one is ready to follow the electrical events at the excitatory synapse. One might guess that if the nerve impulse results from an abrupt inflow of sodium ions and a rapid change in the electrical polarity of the axon's interior, something similar must happen at the body and dendrites of the nerve cell in order to generate the impulse in the first place. Indeed, the function of the excitatory synaptic terminals on the cell body and its dendrites is to depolarize the interior of the cell membrane essentially by permitting an inflow of sodium ions. When the depolarization reaches a threshold value, a nerve impulse is triggered.

As a simple instance of this phenomenon we have recorded the depolarization that occurs in a single motoneuron activated directly by the large nerve fibres that enter the spinal cord from special stretch-receptors known as annulospiral endings. These receptors in turn are located in the same muscle that is activated by the motoneuron under study. Thus the whole system forms a typical reflex arc, such as the arc responsible for the patellar reflex, or knee jerk.

To conduct the experiment we anaesthetized an animal (most often a cat) and free by dissection a muscle nerves that contains these large nerve fibres. By applying a mild electric shock to the exposed nerve one can produce a single impulse in each of the fibres; Since the impulses travel to the spinal cord almost synchronously, they are referred to collectively as a volley. The number of impulses contained in the volley can be reduced by reducing the stimulation applied to the nerve. The volley strength is measured at a point just outside the spinal cord and is displayed on an oscilloscope. About half a millisecond after detection of a volley there is a wavelike change in the voltage inside the motoneuron that has received the volley. The change is detected by a microelectrode inserted in the motoneuron and is displayed on another oscilloscope.

What we find is that the negative voltage inside the cell becomes progressively fewer negative as more of the fibres impinging on the cell are stimulated to fire. This observed depolarization is in fact a simple summation of the depolarization produced by each individual synapse. When the depolarization of the interior of the motoneurons reaches a critical point, a spike suddenly appears on the second oscilloscope, showing that a nerve impulse has been generated. During the spike the voltage inside the cell changes from about 70 millivolts negative to as much as 30 positive millivolts. The spike regularly appears when the depolarization, or reduction of membrane potential, reaches a critical level, which is usually between 10 and 18 millivolts. The only effect of a further strengthening of the synaptic stimulus is to shorten the time needed for the motoneuron to reach the firing threshold. The depolarizing potentials produced in the cell membrane by excitatory synapses are called excitatory postsynaptic potentials, or EPSP's.

Through one barrel of a double-barrelled microelectrode (a small electrode often used to study electric characteristics of living cells and tissue) one can apply a background current to change the resting potential of the interior of the cell membrane, either increasing it or decreasing it. When the potential is made more negative, the EPSP rises more steeply to an earlier peak. When the potential is made less negative, the EPSP rises more slowly to a lower peak. Finally, when the charge inside the cell is reversed so as to be positive with respect to the exterior, the excitatory synapses give rise to an EPSP that is actually the reverse of the normal one.

These observations support the hypothesis that excitatory synapses produce what amounts virtually to a short circuit in the synaptic membrane potential. When this occurs, the membrane no longer acts as a barrier to the passage of ions but lets them flow through in response to the differing electric potential on the two sides of the membrane. In other words, the ions are momentarily allowed to travel freely down their electrochemical gradients, which means that the sodium ions flow into the cell and, to a lesser degree, potassium ions flow out. It is this net flow of positive ions that creates the excitatory postsynaptic potential. The flow of negative ions, such as the chloride ions, is apparently not involved. By artificially altering the potential inside the cell one can establish that there is no flow of ions, and therefore no EPSP, when the voltage drop across the membrane is zero.

How is the synaptic membrane converted from a strong ionic barrier into an ion-permeable state? It is currently accepted that the agency of conversion is the chemical transmitter substance contained in the vesicles inside the synaptic knob. When a nerve impulse reaches the synaptic knob, some of the vesicles are caused to eject the transmitter substance into the synaptic cleft. The molecules of the substance would take only a few microseconds to diffuse across the cleft and become attached to specific receptor sites on the surface membrane of the adjacent nerve cell.

Presumably the receptor sites are associated with fine channels in the membrane that are opened in some way by the attachment of the transmitter-substance molecules to the receptor sites. With the channels thus opened, sodium and potassium ions flow through the membrane thousands of times more readily than they normally do, thereby producing the intense ionic flux that depolarizes the cell membrane and produces the EPSP. In many synapses the current flows strongly for only about a millisecond before the transmitter substance is eliminated from the synaptic cleft, either by diffusion into the surrounding regions or as a result of being destroyed by enzymes. The latter process is known to occur when the transmitter substance is acetylcholine, which is destroyed by the enzyme acetylcholinesterase.

The substantiation of this general picture of synaptic transmission requires the solution of many fundamental problems. Since we do not know the specific transmitter substance for the vast majority of synapses in the nervous system we do not know if there are many different substances or only a few. The only one identified with reasonable certainty in the mammalian central nervous system is acetylcholine. We know practically nothing about the mechanism by which a presynaptic nerve impulse causes the transmitter substance to be injected into the synaptic cleft. Nor do we know how the synaptic vesicles not immediately adjacent to the synaptic cleft ensue to moved up to the firing line to replace the emptied vesicles. It is conjectured that the vesicles contain the enzyme systems needed to recharge themselves. The entire process must be swift and efficient: the total amount of transmitter substance in synaptic terminals is enough for only a few minutes of synaptic activity at normal operating rates. There are also knotty problems to be solved on the other side of the synaptic cleft. What, for example, is the nature of the receptor sites? How are the ionic channels in the membrane opened up?

The second type of synapse that has been identified in the nervous system, in the synapse that can inhibit the firing of a nerve cell even though it may be receiving a volley of excitatory impulses? When inhibitory synapses are examined in the electron microscope, they look very much like excitatory synapses. (There are probably some subtle differences, but they need not concern us here.) The insertion of a microelectrode, the recordings of the activity of single motoneurons and other nerve cells have now shown that the inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP) is virtually a mirror image of the EPSP. Moreover, individual inhibitory synapses, like excitatory synapses, have a cumulative effect. The chief difference is simply that the IPSP makes the cell's internal voltage more negative than it is normally, which is in a direction opposite to that needed for generating a spike discharge.

By driving the internal voltage of a nerve cell in the negative direction inhibitory synapses oppose the action of excitatory synapses, which of course drive it in the positive direction. Hence if the potential inside a resting cell is 70 negative millivolts, a strong volley of inhibitory impulses can drive the potential to 75 or 80 millivolts depreciating count. One can easily see that if the potential is made more negative in this way the excitatory synapses find it more difficult to raise the internal voltage to the threshold point for the generation of a spike. Thus, the nerve cell responds to the algebraic sum of the internal voltage changes produced by excitatory and inhibitory synapses.

If, as in the experiment described earlier, the internal membrane potential is altered by the flow of an electric current through one barrel of a double-barrelled microelectrode, one can observe the effect of such changes on the inhibitory postsynaptic potential. When the internal potential is made less negative, the inhibitory postsynaptic potential is deepened. Conversely, when the potential is made more negative, the IPSP diminishes; it finally reverses when the internal potential is driven below minus 80 millivolts.

One can be assured that inhibitory synapses share with excitatory synapses the ability to change the ionic permeability of the synaptic membrane. The difference is that inhibitory synapses enable ions to flow freely down an electrochemical gradient that has an equilibrium point at minus 80 millivolts rather than at zero, as is the case for excitatory synapses. This effect could be achieved by the outward flow of positively charged ions such as potassium or the inward flow of negatively charged ions such as chloride, or by a combination of negative and positive ionic flows such that the interior reaches equilibrium at minus 80 millivolts.

If the concentration of chloride ions within the cell is increased as much as three times, the inhibitory postsynaptic potential reverses and acts as a depolarizing current; that is, it resembles excitatory potential. On the other hand, if the cell is heavily injected with sulfate ions, which are also negatively charged, there is no such reversal. This simple test shows that under the influence of the inhibitory transmitter substance, which is still unidentified, the subsynaptic membrane becomes permeable momentarily to chloride ions but not to sulfate ions. During the generation of the IPSP the outflow of chloride ions is so rapid that it more than outweighs the flow of other ions that generate the normal inhibitory potential.

Apart from the formate ion all the ions to which the membrane is permeable have a diameter not greater than 1.14 times the diameter of the potassium ion; That is, they are less than 2.9 angstrom units in diameter. Comparable investigations in other laboratories have found the same permeability effects, including the exceptional behaviour of the formate ion, in fishes, toads and snails. It may well be that the ionic mechanism responsible for synaptic inhibition is the same throughout the animal kingdom.

The significance of these and other meaningful studies is that they strongly indicate that the inhibitory transmitter substance opens the membrane to the flow of potassium ions but not to sodium ions. It is known that the sodium ion is somewhat larger than any of the negatively charged ions, including the formate ion, that are able to pass through the membrane during synaptic inhibition. It is not possible, however, to test the effectiveness of potassium ions by injecting excess amounts into the cell because the excess is immediately diluted by an osmotic flow of water into the cell.

The concentration of potassium ions inside the nerve cell is about 30 times greater than the concentration outside, and to maintain this large difference in concentration without the help of some metabolic pumps inside of the membrane would have to be charged 90 negative millivolts with respect to the exterior. This implies that if the membrane were suddenly made porous to potassium ions, the resulting outflow of ions would make the interiorized potential of the membrane, is, that, to the greater extent for being more negative than it is in the resting state, and that is just what happens during synaptic inhibition. The membrane must not simultaneously become porous to sodium ions, because they exist in much higher concentration outside the cell than inside and their rapid inflow would more than compensate for the potassium outflow. In fact, the fundamental difference between synaptic excitation and synaptic inhibition is that the membrane freely passes sodium ions in response to the former and largely excludes the passage of sodium ions in response to the latter.

This fine discrimination between ions that are not very different in size must be explained by any hypothesis of synaptic action. It is most unlikely that the channels through the membrane are created afresh and accurately maintained for a thousandth of a second every time a burst of transmitter substance is released into the synaptic cleft. It is more likely that channels of at least two different sizes are built directly into the membrane structure. In some way the excitatory transmitter substance would selectively unplug the larger channels and permit the free inflow of sodium ions. Potassium ions would simultaneously flow out and thus would tend to counteract the large potential change that would be produced by the massive sodium inflow. The inhibitory transmitter substance would selectively unplug the smaller channels that are large enough to pass potassium and chloride ions but not sodium ions.

To explain certain types of inhibition other features must be added to this hypothesis of synaptic transmission. In a simple hypothesis chloride and potassium ions can flow freely through pores of all inhibitory synapses. It has been shown, that, nonetheless, the inhibition of the contraction of heart muscle by the vagus nerve is due almost exclusively to potassium-ion flow. On the other hand, in the muscles of crustaceans and in nerve cells in the snail's brain synaptic inhibition is due largely to the flow of chloride ions. This selective permeability could be explained if there were fixed charges along the walls of the channels. If such charges were negative, they would repel negatively charged ions and prevent their passage; if they were positive, they would similarly prevent the passage of positively charged ions. One can now suggest that the channels opened by the excitatory transmitter are negatively charged and so do not permit the passage of the negatively charged chloride ion, even though it is small enough to move through the channel freely.

One might wonder if a given nerve cell can have excitatory synaptic action at some of its axon terminals and inhibitory action at others. The answer is no. Two different kinds of nerve cells are needed, one for each type of transmission and synaptic transmitter substance. This can readily be demonstrated by the effect of strychnine and tetanus toxins in the spinal cord; They specifically prevent inhibitory synaptic action and leave excitatory action unaltered. As a result the synaptic excitation of nerve cells is uncontrolled and convulsions result. The special types of cells responsible for inhibitory synaptic action are now being recognized in many parts of the central nervous system.

This account of communication between nerve cells is necessarily oversimplified, yet it shows that some significant advances are being made at the level of individual components of the nervous system. By selecting the most favourable situations we have been able to throw light on some details of nerve-cell behaviour. We can be encouraged by these limited successes. But the task to a better understanding are the ways that are comprehensively staggering among the operative imaginations that the human brain, is least to travel.

Our brain begins with its portion of the central nervous system contained within the skull. The brain is the control centre for movement, sleep, hunger, thirst, and virtually every other vital activity necessary to survival. All human emotions - including love, hate, fear, anger, elation, and sadness - are controlled by the brain. It also receives and interprets the countless signals that are sent to it from other parts of the body and from the external environment. The brain makes us conscious, emotional, and intelligent

The human brain has three major structural components: the large dome-shaped cerebrum, the smaller somewhat spherical cerebellum, and the brainstem. Prominent in the brainstem are the medulla oblongata and the thalamus, between the medulla and the cerebrum. The cerebrum is responsible for intelligence and reasoning. The cerebellum helps to maintain balance and posture. The medulla is involved in maintaining involuntary functions such as respiration, and the thalamus act as a relay centre for electrical impulses travelling to and from the cerebral cortex.

The adult human brain is a 1.3kg. (3-lb.) Mass of pinkish-gray jellylike tissue made up of approximately 100 billion nerve cells or neurons: The Neuroglia (supporting-tissue) cells, and vascular (blood-carrying) and other tissues.

Between the brain and the cranium - the part of the skull that directly covers the brain - are three protective membranes, or meninges. The outermost membrane, the dura mater, is the toughest and thickest. Below the dura mater is a middle membrane, called the arachnoid layer. The innermost membrane, the pia mater, consists mainly of small blood vessels and follows the contours of the surface of the brain.

A clear liquid, the cerebrospinal fluid, bathes the entire brain and fills a series of four cavities, called ventricles, near the centre of the brain. The cerebrospinal fluid protects the internal portion of the brain from varying pressures and transports chemical substances within the nervous system.

From the exterior, the brain appears as having three associatively distinctly but connected parts, the cerebrum (the Latin word for brain) - two large, almost symmetrical hemispheres; the cerebellum ('little brain') - two smaller hemispheres located at the back of the cerebrum: And the brain stem - a central core that gradually becomes the spinal cord, exiting the skull through an opening at its base called the foramen magnum. Two other major parts of the brain, the thalamus and the hypothalamus, lie in the midline above the brain stem underneath the cerebellum.

The brain and the spinal cord together make up the central nervous system, which communicates with the rest of the body through the peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nervous system consists of 12 pairs of cranial nerves extending from the cerebrum and brain stem; a system of other nerves branching throughout the body from the spinal cord, and the autonomic nervous system, which regulates vital functions that are under conscious control, such as the activity of the heart muscle, smooth muscle (involuntary muscle found in the skin, blood vessels, and internal organs), and glands.

Many motor and sensory functions have been mapped to specific areas of the cerebral cortex, some of which are indicated here. In general, these areas exist in both hemispheres of the cerebrum, each serving the opposite side of the body. Fewer defined are the areas of association, located mainly in the frontal cortex, operatives in functions of thought and emotion and responsible for linking input from different senses. The areas of language are an exception: Both Wernicke's area, concerned with the comprehension of spoken language, and Broca's area, governing the production of speech, have been pinpointed on the cortex.

Most high-level brain functions take place in the cerebrum. Its two large hemispheres make up approximately 85 percent of the brain's weight. The exterior surface of the cerebrum, the cerebral cortex, is a convoluted, or folded, grayish layer of cell bodies known as the gray matter. The gray matter covers an underlying mass of fibres called the white matter. The convolutions are made up of ridgelike bulges, known as gyri, separated by small grooves called sulci and larger grooves called fissures. Approximately two-thirds of the cortical surface is hidden in the folds of the sulci. The extensive convolutions enable a very large surface area of brain cortices - as roughly as, 1.5m2 (16 ft2) in an adult - to fit within the cranium. The pattern of these convolutions is similar, although not identical, in all humans.

The two cerebral hemispheres are partially separated from each other by a deep fold known as the longitudinal fissure. Communication between the two hemispheres is through several concentrated bundles of axons, called commissures, the largest of which is the corpus callosum.

Several major sulci divides the cortex into distinguishable regions. The central sulcus, or Rolandic fissure, runs from the middle of the top of each hemisphere downward, forwards, and toward another major sulcus, the lateral (side), or Sylvian, sulcus. These and other sulci and gyri divide the cerebrum into five lobes: The frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes and the insula.

Although the cerebrum is symmetrical in structure, with two lobes emerging from the brain stem and matching motor and sensory areas in each, certain intellectual functions are restricted to one hemisphere. A person's dominant hemisphere is usually occupied with language and logical operations, while the in other hemisphere (whether it is the left or the right hemisphere) controls